Reiks

{{Short description|Gothic title for a tribal ruler}}

Reiks ({{Langx|got|𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃}}; pronunciation {{IPA|/ri:ks/}}; Latinized as rix) is a Gothic title for a tribal ruler, often translated as "king".

In the Gothic Bible, it translates to the Greek árchōn (ἄρχων).{{cite book|author1=A. W. Van Der Hoek|author2=Dirk H. A. Kolff |author2-link=Dirk H. A. Kolff |author3=M. S. Oort|title=Ritual, State, and History in South Asia: Essays in Honour of J.C. Heesterman|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EtwtSZwyWpgC&pg=PA310|accessdate=4 January 2013|year=1992|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09467-3|pages=310–}}

It is presumably translated as basiliskos (βασιλίσκος "petty king") in the Passio of Sabbas the Goth.{{cite book|author=Herwig Wolfram|title=Gotische Studien: Volk und Herrschaft im frühen Mittelalter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xuAI_WgtFuUC&pg=PA90|accessdate=5 January 2013|year=2005|publisher=C. H. Beck|isbn=978-3-406-52957-3|pages=90–}}

The Gothic Thervingi were divided into subdivisions of territory and people called kunja (singular kuni, cognate with English {{wikt-lang|en|kin}}), led by a reiks.Herwig Wolfram, Die Goten: Von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des 6. Jahrhunderts, p. 105. In times of a common threat, one of the reiks would be selected as a kindins, or head of the empire (translated as "judge", Latin iudex, Greek δικαστής).Ammianus Marcellinus (27,5,9) mentions one Athanaric iudex gentis, "judge of the people."

Herwig Wolfram suggested the position was different from the Roman definition of a rex ("king") and is better described as that of a tribal chief (see Germanic king).{{cite book|author=P. J. Heather|title=The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4MADmH2eaGIC&pg=PA358|accessdate=5 January 2013|year=1999|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-1-84383-033-7|pages=358–}}

A reiks had a lower order of optimates or megistanes (μεγιστάνες, presumably translating mahteigsBéla Köpeczi, History of Transylvania: From the beginnings to 1606, Social Science Monographs, 2001, p. 163.) beneath him on whom he could call on for support.Béla Köpeczi, History of Transylvania: From the beginnings to 1606, Social Science Monographs, 2001, p. 163.

It also figures prominently as second element in Gothic names, Latinized and often anglicized as -ric, such as in Theoderic (Þiuda-reiks).

The use of the suffix extended into the Merovingian dynasty, with kings given names such as Childeric,{{cite book|author=Herwig Wolfram|title=The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tOnQDfRU-poC&pg=PA17|accessdate=5 January 2013|year=1997|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-08511-4|pages=17–}} and it survives in modern German and Scandinavian names such as Ulrich, Erik, Dietrich, Heinrich, Richard, Friedrich.